1. Field
This disclosure relates generally to the field of wireless communications and more specifically to the systems and methods for providing multiple connections in a mobile Internet Protocol (IP) network.
2. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple mobile devices by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, and the like.
Most current wireless communication system support Internet Protocol (IP) based packet-switched networking for data and voice communications and, in particular, two most commonly used versions of the protocol, namely IPv4 and IPv6. Both versions of the protocol provide mobility support and allow mobile devices to remain reachable while moving between various wireless networks. In general, mobile IP allows a mobile device to move from one network to another without changing the mobile device's “home address” (HoA), which is assigned to the mobile device by its home agent (HA), also referred to as a Local Mobility Anchor (LMA), residing in the home network. Packets may be routed to the mobile device using this address regardless of the mobile device's point of attachment in a foreign network.
For example, to remain reachable in IPv6 domain, a mobile device must create and maintain a binding between its HoA assigned by the HA and its “care-of address” (CoA) in the foreign network by exchanging signaling messages with its home agent. Alternatively, the binding may be created and maintained by the network without the involvement of the mobile device. In this approach, a proxy agent in the foreign network performs the signaling with the local mobility anchor (LMA) in the home network and does the mobility management on behalf of the mobile device. In turn, HAs/LMAs manage distribution of home addresses to the mobile devices, manage devices' binding states, and specify which services and applications are available to the mobile devices.
Different HAs/LMAs provide different types of services, such as IMS, public internet service, etc. To access these services, a mobile device should request simultaneous connectivity to multiple HAs/LMAs. However, some wireless communication systems supporting both mobile IPv4 and IPv6, such as High Rate Packet Data (HRPD) technology implemented in CDMA2000, generally allow only a single HA/LMA connection for each mobile device and require all HAs/LMAs to assign IPv4 addresses to the mobile devices from the same address space because of the scarcity of available IPv4 addresses. With the growing popularity of mobile devices and demand for usage of differentiated services, there is a need for a solution to support simultaneous connectivity to multiple HAs/LMAs over HRPD and other protocols supporting IPv4 and IPv6 mobility.